This invention relates to an apparatus for facilitating the servicing and/or testing of a printed circuit board which is removed from its normal mounting position in a piece of equipment but is electrically interconnected with the equipment so as to enable dynamic testing of the removed circuit board.
Recently, certain inter-board connector arrangements have been used to provide the electrical connections between adjacent printed circuit boards which are housed in a support structure without an interconnecting element which is commonly referred to as a "back panel". One such inter-board connector arrangement is shown in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 877,432 which was filed on Feb. 13, 1978 and is assigned to the same assignee as is the present invention. The inter-board connector arrangement mentioned generally has a female connector member located on one side of a circuit board and a male connector member located on the opposite side of the board. The electrical contacts on the female member on one circuit board are displaced somewhat through an actuating means to permit the male member located on the next adjacent circuit board to be inserted into the female member with zero-insertion-force (ZIF), and when the male and female members are aligned to provide the contact-to-contact, electrical connections, the actuating means is again utilized to permit the contacts on the female member to engage the corresponding contacts on the male member to provide the electrical connections therebetween.